Trees

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Trees Forests
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Northern Boreal (Taiga)
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Supalpine
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Temperate Forests
a forest that grows in regions with moderate
temperatures, found north and south of tropical
forests
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Tropical Forests
both temperate and tropical are dominated by
trees often forming a closed canopy with
little light reaching the ground and high
rainfall
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Levels of the forest
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Levels of the Forest
Level Plant Animal
Emergent Layer
top level of the forest formed by leaves
branches of tallest trees.
Different birds (owls etc) and insects (aphids,
tent caterpillars)
Canopy
LevelPlantAnimal
Insects, lichens, squirrels, woodpeckers and many
other birds
Smaller trees shrubs
Herb, Underbrush or Shubbery Layer (understory)
LevelPlantAnimal
Ferns, wildflowers and other soft stem plants,
tree seedlings.
Butterflies, dragonflies, mice, weasels, deer,
porcupine, skunks, rabbits
LevelPlantAnimal
Forest Floor
Ground cover and soil leaf litter, mushroom,
moss, flowers.
Toads, salamanders, worms, bacteria, soil
insects, spiders, millipedes centipedes.
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Levels of the forest drawing assignment

• It is your job to create a drawing and word piece
  that shows the levels of the forest and which
  living and non-living creatures live in each
• This will be due on Friday before pancake
  breakfast
• Will have some time Wednesday to work on the
  pieces

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Who Lives on Trees and Uses Them as Homes?

• Fungi white and brown but never green most
  fungi feed on dead trees, a few on living trees.
• Lichens are two plants, a fungus and an alga,
  that live together in symbiosis (help each
  other) are grey, green or orange use the tree
  only for support they look like splotches of
  paint.
• Mosses are green, even all winter like the cool
  moist bases of tree trunks, as well as fallen
  dead trees use the tree just for support.
• Animals include woodpeckers, squirrels, owls
  many of them use trees for their homes and for
  their food supplies.

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How Do Trees Affect a Forest?

• They break the wind and with less air movement,
  there is less drying.
• They shade the ground from the sun thereby
  lowering air temperature forests tend to be
  cool, humid places and the soil is moist there.
• Forest soil is also very rich in nutrient because
  of all the leaves, branches, and stems which
  decompose into humus.

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How do Other Living Organisms Affect the Trees in
a Forest?

• Herbivores such as deer and caterpillars eat
  leaves large populations of tent caterpillars
  can have a devastating effect on popular trees in
  Alberta, wiping out all the leaves in stands of
  such trees in a short time these trees grow
  secondary leaves which are fewer in number and
  smaller in size the trees will not survive to
  successive summers of tent caterpillars.

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How do Other Living Organisms Affect the Trees in
a Forest?

• Coniferous trees are also affected by certain
  insects the spruce bud worm kills the growing
  shoots on spruce trees.
• Birds can hurt trees yellow-bellied sapsuckers
  peck rows of shallow holes around the trunk of
  trees to draw out the sap often the birds will
  make a series of holes in one tree and drain
  enough sap to kill sections of the tree.
• Blight, which is a kind of fungus, can get on
  leaves and into the wood of tree stems, gradually
  destroying leaves or wood and eventually killing
  the tree.